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13 July 2018Copyright

World Cup special: 5 stories about football and IP

As the FIFA World Cup in Russia comes to a close this weekend, the interest in football will reach fever pitch. But are you familiar with these five stories about the crossover between football and IP? WIPR reports.

Striking down piracy

For many football fans old and new, this year’s World Cup has been hugely exciting. Hundreds of millions of people are expected to watch the final between France and Croatia on Sunday, July 15, before the four-year wait for the next tournament in Qatar begins.

But as FIFA, football’s governing body, understandably wants to ensure fans view games via legitimate channels, it has been cracking down on piracy during the tournament.

As  WIPR  reported yesterday, July 12, FIFA has engaged counsel to take legal action in Saudi Arabia against pirate channel beoutQ, which has been streaming World Cup matches in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. That’s because Qatar-based beIN Sports is the exclusive broadcaster of the World Cup in the MENA region.

A month before the story broke, there was similar news from the Indian sub-continent, where Sony is the official internet and mobile broadcaster of FIFA 2018. In what appeared to be a pre-emptive strike, India-based law enforcement agency  MarkScan, which works with  Sony, warned streaming sites in India and neighbouring countries against broadcasting the  2018 FIFA World Cup illegally.

With reports suggesting viewing figures during this year’s group stage reached an average of 815 million, comfortably beating the 623 million average from the entire 2014 World Cup, FIFA and its partners will be hoping the levels of piracy have gone in the opposite direction.

Image-conscious

Anyone watching football over the past ten years knows how frequently the ‘Messi v Ronaldo’ debate arises. Tiresome and passionate as it may be, the discussion centres on whether Argentina’s Lionel Messi or Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo is superior and, in some eyes, therefore the greatest-ever player.

While the two are arguably neck and neck, they have experienced mixed fortunes in the IP world.

In April,  WIPR  reported that Messi had obtained victory at the EU General Court after it overturned a European Union Intellectual Property Office finding that Messi couldn’t register a trademark for his name in view of ‘Massi’, belonging to a Spanish company. The court said the player’s fame counteracts any similarities between the marks.

For Ronaldo, a man famed for maintaining a well-groomed look, an image rights case has ironically caused him difficulty.

As  WIPR  reported last year, the star came under fire from the Spanish tax authorities for allegedly failing to declare more than €14.7 million ($16.4 million) in revenue derived from image rights. Since then, as reported by  The Independent newspaper on the day after the World Cup began, Ronaldo has been handed a two-year suspended prison sentence and fined €18.8 million after reaching a deal with the tax authorities.

Does the outcome count as a win, loss or draw for Ronaldo? You decide.

Keeping out the counterfeits

180,000 pieces of apparel and accessories, 50,000 pairs of shoes and 29,000 bags.

These were just some of the counterfeit World Cup goods seized by Hong Kong customs in the two months before the World Cup began as part of ‘Operation Goalkeeper’. In total, officials seized 259,000 pieces of suspected infringing items and five arrests were made in relation to the alleged infringements.

And in Shenzen, China, customs announced it had seized 4,000 items of clothing that infringe the FIFA World Cup logo in April this year, according to state news outlet  Xinhua.

FIFA has many rights to protect all over the world.  WIPR  spoke to Daniel Zohny, senior legal counsel, IP, in 2016 about brand protection at the organisation. At the time, he said FIFA had 13,500 trademark registrations and pending applications, around 300 designs and 150 copyright registrations, covering 157 jurisdictions.

Hú should own the trademark rights?

In 2016, when Iceland reached the quarter-finals of the European Championship tournament, the world discovered the Icelandic football chant. What starts as a slow clap with fans dressed as Vikings and chanting ‘Hú’, builds in pace until it’s a massive wall of noise.

And, ahead of Iceland’s participation in the World Cup (the first time the country has qualified), an Icelandic cartoonist planned to produce t-shirts featuring a stick person wearing an Iceland top, with the word ‘Hú’ in a speech bubble.

But a trademark for the word ‘Húh!’, owned by an individual called Gunnar Þór Andrésson, stood in the way.

Andrésson owns the trademark in classes 25, 32, and 33, covering products such as accessories, clothing, and beverages. His ownership is not due to expire until 2026.

The cartoonist, Hugleikur Dagsson, made the dispute public after the Icelandic Patent Office found that ‘Hú’ and ‘Húh!’ amount to the same word.

“My ‘Hú!’ needn’t bother his ‘Húh!’ We should all be able to ‘HÚ!’ together. Isn’t that what ‘hú(h)!’ is about?”, Dagsson reportedly said.

Local news outlet  Iceland Review spoke to Andrésson, who said he’d faced a “great deal of abuse” but that he understood part of the criticism he’s received, “particularly the criticism regarding the trademarking of a public concept”. He’s decided not to pursue the matter any further.

The dispute caused “quite an outrage” in Iceland, as the general consensus is that the chant “should belong to the people”, according to Magnús Hrafn Magnússon, attorney at Icelandic firm Sigurjónsson & Thor.

Stop copying me!

Diego Maradona, a retired Argentine football player who is considered by many to be the game’s greatest ever player, does not like being copied.

In March last year, he took issue with Japanese video game maker Konami for allegedly using his likeness in the “Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) 2017” game.

Maradona’s post said: “I heard yesterday that the Japanese company Konami uses my image for its game PES 2017. Unfortunately, my lawyer Matias Morla will initiate the corresponding legal actions. I hope this is not another scam ...”

In response, Konami said that there had been media reports about the use of “unauthorised players” but that the game maker was using “the rights correctly according to the agreement with the licensor”.

Maradona has played in four FIFA World Cups including the 1986 competition in Mexico, where he captained his country to victory.

This is certainly not the first time that celebrities have taken on video game makers—actor Lindsay Lohan went to war with the makers of the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise in 2014.

Lohan failed in her latest attempt to sue Take-Two Interactive, after six judges unanimously rejected her claim that an in-game character was based off of her.

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